Follow Barack Obama prior and during his tenure as the 44th President of the United States. Read about my personal observations along with every day facts as they happen. This blog will only submit factual information about the first black President, now in his 2nd term of office.

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

President Obama signed the Omnibus bill loaded with at least 8,000 earmarks, created by the Senators to fund their own projects. The president mentioned before his election and immediately after in a few interviews that he would never support such legislation, but he in a sense did just that by signing the bill that was loaded with earmarks. The total of about $8 Billion. Unlike John McCain, he believes that they serve a useful purpose to a point, but he also believes that now is the time to go by another set of guidelines and principles in order to include them in future legislation. Some of the lawmakers urged the president to veto the bill, but he signed the bill today, because the the majority of the money will be used to keep the government running until the end of the year.
But in the future, he claims that he will scrutinize further earmarks and will go through them line by line, and make sure that they have a worth public purpose. Before signing such a future document with earmarks attached, Obama said that they should be aired on the specific lawmakers websites so the public and the press can become informed as to what they are and who they would serve. He believes that they should be open to the public for scrutiny at public hearings. Companies receiving earmarks is the most corrupt element of the practice. Private companies should especially be watched, as they should be highly scrutinized during an evaluation process if they accept the funds. So the bottom line here is that Obama pledges to eliminate any future earmark that has "no legitimate public purpose". Of course, John McCain jumped on the actions of President Obama signing the Omnibus bill as he claims that we will continue to do business as usual in Washington regarding earmarks in appropriations legislation," McCain said in a statement. "The president could have resolved this issue in one statement -- no more unauthorized pork barrel projects -- and pledged to use his veto pen to stop them."
Obama's budget director made a vow Sunday that the president will bring a halt to pork-laden bills. Whether you may think that Obama's passage of a bill containing so many earmarks is right, it just makes you wonder what they all are. The earmarks are supposed to be published on the internet to keep up with Obama's accountability factor that he so highly defends.